Sketchbook: Add3r
polycounter lvl 11
Hey guys, my name is Tyler Geosano (Known as Add3r across many boards on the web), currently residing in So.Cal. and I am, a part-time, lead artist at a local (and small) web/mobile development studio, as well as full-time art student. I figured I would start my sketchbook and really try to push myself as an artist, just like many others have on this wonderful forum! I am relatively new to this site, posting wise (been quite the lurker for a while). Comments and Critiques are more than welcome! I am not easily hurt, so please, tear my work apart! As it will not only help my confidence, but my work as a whole! 
I am currently studying Game Art and Design at a local art school (currently only just entering my second year), trying to specialize in Environment Art (primarily the 3D side of things), as well as Game Play and User Interface Design. I love 3D work, and I love working within game engines and seeing my work come to life and being able to walk through an environment that I have created. It really inspired me to pursue environment art, but I also have had a long love of User Interface design, as well as game play mechanic design, I worked on many a UI mod for WoW back in my days of playing lol. This sketchbook will be just about any work I produce, whether it be weapon doodles, to UI mockups, etc etc.
So here we go!
Current WIP: UI mockup for Igna (game projects name), eventually will be making the water within the glass swish around as the character runs, as if he is holding it, reacting in real time. The character will be wielding a magical item that can harness 1 of 3 different elements at a time to complete puzzles and compete in combat, and this liquid will also change colors to resemble the current element color.
Aiming for a very hand painted look for the game, with a hint of Cel Shading, similar to Borderlands. Think; Torchlight and WoW, met Borderlands, similar to the art style hybrid the game is based off of.
Planning on updating this thread as much as I possibly can, with school work that is WIP, as well as "finished" pieces. Will also be showcasing pieces of the game here as well! Thanks guys! Let me know if I am doing anything wrong, as this is my first sketchbook styled thread
I am currently studying Game Art and Design at a local art school (currently only just entering my second year), trying to specialize in Environment Art (primarily the 3D side of things), as well as Game Play and User Interface Design. I love 3D work, and I love working within game engines and seeing my work come to life and being able to walk through an environment that I have created. It really inspired me to pursue environment art, but I also have had a long love of User Interface design, as well as game play mechanic design, I worked on many a UI mod for WoW back in my days of playing lol. This sketchbook will be just about any work I produce, whether it be weapon doodles, to UI mockups, etc etc.
So here we go!
Current WIP: UI mockup for Igna (game projects name), eventually will be making the water within the glass swish around as the character runs, as if he is holding it, reacting in real time. The character will be wielding a magical item that can harness 1 of 3 different elements at a time to complete puzzles and compete in combat, and this liquid will also change colors to resemble the current element color.
Aiming for a very hand painted look for the game, with a hint of Cel Shading, similar to Borderlands. Think; Torchlight and WoW, met Borderlands, similar to the art style hybrid the game is based off of.
Planning on updating this thread as much as I possibly can, with school work that is WIP, as well as "finished" pieces. Will also be showcasing pieces of the game here as well! Thanks guys! Let me know if I am doing anything wrong, as this is my first sketchbook styled thread
Replies
15min quick sketch of the "Father Tree" (Current working name, used for development purposes)
Another quickie with a simple paint over for materials. These are done to help the team decide on how we want the major assets to look. I do a quick sketch like this, and then the team will discuss everything about the piece and how we all envisioned it and then we go back and pick the things out we like and then I go and do a final Front/Side for modeling purposes, and for my favorites will go back and do a 3/4
Many things I need to go back and clean up (mainly the back end weight behind the cab/engine area), but this was done in a 4hr period for a hard surface modeling class, so some sacrifices had to be made to meet the time limit!
A 2048x2048 Tileable grass texture that I made following fellow member's video, Jeffro
Dont like how it came out personally, I feel it is really noisy and I brought it into UDK to test, but it would have come out better with bigger blades and more time spent on variation and depth. We cant be proud with everything though can we? Definitely a solid first try though on grass
The link to his sketchbook with his awesome videos:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86578&page=2
Thanks Jeffro, your videos have helped me a TON with texturing, and your sketchbook has been very inspirational!
It is a magical glow, as the character walks up to the tree, this opening at the base will be pulsing a colored glow, indicating for the player to step inside. The actual motions of the level and how the character will end up inside this tunnel are still being determined by the team, but this is me just wanting to take Father Tree another step for practice purposes
Top/Middle bridge from my bridge silhouettes, team has agreed upon the design and I am taking it to the next step. I will be modelling it out in the coming days to be added to our current level project.
Comments and Critiques are very much appreciated! Only makes us all better artists
A metal plate texture I am working on, its still very much a WIP, but its a basic idea of where I am going with it. The bolts still need a lot of work, i know... It looks more like stone to me, but I might be over analyzing it. Comments and Critiques are very much welcome
It will tile, more of practice than anything. Trying to improve my hand painted texturing skills
UPDATE:
Some minor revisions on the metal texture
My specific route I took for this tileset was:
1. create the base single tile
2. Automatic mapped the single tile.
3. Sub D modeling for Mudbox/Sculpting
4. Multiplied the tiles to create the four.
5. Moved them into place and then went through the exporting steps
6. Simple sculpting in mudbox (this was just a quick exercise to get a base of normal/ao baking)
7. lowered the Sub D in muxbox so it would transfer, imported back to maya
8. Transfer maps for the AO Bake, and the Normal map.
9. Worked on Diffuse, and then setup simple render scene and then rendered through Mental Ray with custom settings.
10. Created my first presentation sheet for the renders
Please let me know if there is a step missing or if I did something wrong! I am completely new to the world of normal mapping, etc etc. I have been working in mobile so normal maps didnt exist, just low poly, heavily diffused characters/environments. Yes, I do know how to UV unwrap, etc etc. I just automapped for the sake of it being a god damn plane and that I didnt want to go through the ringer for a transfer map to a plane. Sorry its late, I am tired, and I might have totally just rambled on. Thanks for reading guys
Comments and critiques always wanted
Current work in progress, working on a small tree scene. Will be updating the sketchbook with some more progress. Possibly do a quick sketch of where I want to go with the scene, as of right now I am just kinda free ballin it with ideas in my head lol. It actually all started out with a simple tree modeling exercise but I am trying to specialize in 3D environment work for my portfolio, so I thought this could be a pretty sweet little prop/asset piece
I was flipping through some concept work in my inspiration folder and wanted to do some sort of old archway. So I sketched up a piece in about 15min (I was just painting to get the basic idea of what I wanted to do and the materials it would be made out of), so forgive the slopiness of it. This is a sketch thread anyway lol. I then brought the sketch into Maya and blocked out a base mesh, I modified the original drawing to make it more viable and realistic, and used larger stones. Then brought the block out into MudBox (each piece is a seperate mesh so I have full control of the sculpting and can duplicate and reuse blocks if needed).
Total time was just under and hour from inspiration folder, to sketch, to sculpting and then typing this post. Comments and Crits please!
Sktech:
Sculpt:
In the end was planning on doing a low poly, then mirroring it after texture, etc. Practicing basic pipeline/workflow techniques and getting better at baking
Currently heavily invested in school and that means little to absolutely no time for personal work, and that means my sketchbook has been neglected. Anywhoo....
Character design that I sketched up and will be diving into sculpting him out and then working on a game ready version of him textured, low poly, and all for class. Will update with progress. Should be interesting since this will be my first legit 3D character work I will have undertaken, at this scale.
I am no concept artist, nor am I any sort of character artist in general. So bear with me, and this is why this in my sketchbook thread. This sketch was just done to get a basic idea of where to go with the sculpt, hence missing vital details of anatomy etc. I do have a goblin sketch just for the body anatomy, this is the clothed version, much more interesting. The head on the right is just a quickie to get a 3D idea of the head shapes
Late night doodling. Couldn't sleep. Girlfriend problems. Enjoy.
A tad messy and the hard surface details will be getting a LOT more love. This is a couple hours of work. Keep in mind this is my first legit character I have done from start to finish following industry standard work flows. So in sense this is new to me. I have been modeling for a long time now, but organic has always been my weakness and I intend to start to tackle those fears as well as legitimately diving into zBrush! Working on his head as I type this
EDIT: Low Poly blockout is done, but its just a bunch of really minor things and a blocky head. I will be sculpting the ears and head primarily in zBrush and then rebuilding low-poly after the initial sculpt. Should have a decent update pretty soon. The problem is, this project will be happening over the next 7weeks, because I am also building a sci-fi level with 3 textures and all modular pieces as well, due on the same day. And I want to be an environment artist.... So the level comes first. And my instructor is at Blizzard as an Environment artist........ So yeah. Its gotta look good. Will be posting progress with that for sure as well. Update on that tonight hopefully!
VERY MUCH A WIP! Crits and feedback very much welcome and very much needed! This is my first ever character sculpt, and second legit sculpt ever within zBrush
Im having this weird Pitting problem as you can see! I tried just simply sculpting and smoothing them out at first, and as I went back over for another smooth pass they came back! In random spots...... I am absolutely a 100% NOT sure what the hell those are. They are the reason my sculpt is so damn lumpy right now... I have been trying to sculpt out the random pits everywhere lol. Thanks for looking! Crits and Feedback greatly needed/wanted
I also did a 45min quick sketch in zBrush before bed last night (going to try to do these regularly as it REALLY helped me get more familiar with the UI, different workflows and brushes, etc etc. Started with a sphere and gave myself a 45min time limit to find some inspiration for a sketch and sculpt. Here is the result:
Comment and Critiques GREATLY Appreciated! I am still learning
First off: Darksiders 2 fan art
Second: Texture I am working on. Tried the sculpt and then transfer map bake to make normal stamps, and then made a tiling brick texture out of the stamps in photoshop with the help of nDo2 for details, AO, etc. Then baked the AO into the Diffuse and did a color base paint over. Its still SUPER WIP. I am not happy with it at all yet, there is a ton of minor mistakes I am going to revisit when I have time. In the meantime, I have other stuff for this environment to get done. Working on a Dishonored styled environment, based off a Fable 3 concept piece from Lionhead studios.
And last, but not least..... The logo I just finished up for my current project. Igna is on hold, due to team problems (programmer fell through, and the team slowly migrated/merged with another group to start development on this project, in my opnion, has WAY more potential). Will have updates on Rachat later (Ra-Shah). Currently heading the modular environment and high poly modeling. We have a VERY talented team of students from Ai Orange County, the Polygon Pals
Thanks for looking! Crits/Feedback much appreciated and wanted! :poly142: